For me, the first day of April has always been filled with disappointment.

Starting when I was 6, my older brother Eric began pranking me on April Fools’ Day. Even though I knew his pranks were coming, I still fell for his antics each year.

I remember my excitement when he handed me a gift bag, only to pull out a Ziploc bag full of pencil shavings, or the time we had an Oreo eating contest, but my Oreos were filled with toothpaste.

Needless to say, my older brother was a cruel person, and I had to get him back for all those years of embarrassment.

Since my brother is in college in Missouri, I decided to prank him on March 11, a Sunday during his Spring Break.

My brother is not a morning person. I decided to wake up at 6 a.m., get a bucket of cold water and dump it on him. I was going to do this for every hour until he got up.

Once he got up, I would do the classic prank of taping the bottom of the faucet closed and spreading Vaseline all over his towel. I also got the genius idea of Saran Wrapping the toilet bowl from YouTube.

I decided to catch him off guard again at night.

After dinner, I was going to put a bucket of water on top of his door, so when he opened the door, the water spilled on him. I would re-tape the tape on the water faucet and respread Vaseline on his towel. When he needed to use the bathroom, I would wait outside the door with a horn and scare him when he came out.  

When the day came, I woke up at 6 a.m., grabbed a cup, and filled it with water. Then I tiptoed into my brother’s room, dumped the water on his face, and sprinted out of the room.

Immediately, my brother screamed, “Kevin, what the” followed by a string of expletives. I repeated the same thing each hour until 10 a.m. and each time he got angrier, letting me know that I had achieved my goal.

I had already taped the faucet and spread Vaseline on his towel, but forgot about it while catching up on chemistry homework.

When I heard another string of expletives, followed by the classic “this is not funny anymore!” I laughed until my stomach hurt.

The only failure of the morning was the Saran Wrap. I had set up my trap at 8 a.m. and then went to do my math homework.

So when I had to use the restroom at 8:45 a.m., I forgot all about the prank and instead was thinking about math. Needless to say, I ended up falling for my own prank and the result was quite embarrassing.

But other than that, the morning was a huge success and it was time to prepare for the night.

Sadly, the night went much worse than the morning. When my brother went to hang out with friends, I attempted to set up the bucket of water on the door prank. I had always been a clumsy person, and as I tried to set the bucket of water on top of the door, it flipped over and spilled on my own head, drenching me from head to toe.

After enduring this humiliating failure, I re-taped the faucet and re-spread the Vaseline, but my brother discovered both of them and without my knowledge switched our towels.

At 9 p.m. after my shower, my brother was the one laughing at me as I covered my entire upper body in Vaseline.

Annoyed, I called it quits and did not even try the horn prank.

Another year has gone by, and another time my brother has gotten the last laugh. I guess I’ll need to think of a better plan for 2019.